foreign policy and national security in the world. to move from an era of war, which we have been in for a number of years, to the next phase in terms of american leadership in the world so yes, the president determined as he said during the campaign in 2008 that we would withdraw from iraq and we have withdrawn from iraq an iran asi asi iraq stands on its own as a sovereign state. the president has said in conjunction with our allies, by the way, at the lisbon nato summit and confirmed at the chicago summit on afghanistan, nato summit, that the united states and the troops would complete the military mission in afghanistan by december 31st, 2014 and we are on track to meet that goal. >> and how many troops will remain after that? that's the question. >> yes, today we have about 67 or 66 or 67,000 troops in afghanistan. >> right. >> the president has said and we will implement this, that there will be a reduction in those drops at a steady pace between now and the end of the year, 2014, so that is essentially 23 months from now. and w